African American Spirituals, the Y. W. C. A., and Racial Change

Image Source: "Men's Glee Club." Ayantee (NCA&T yearbook). 1939. p. 56. https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/28910?ln=en#?xywh=-1597%2C-183%2C7236%2C3072&cv=59

African American spirituals softened and even bypassed Jim Crow bigotry otherwise regnant at ECTC by occasioning interracial dimensions of student life that, while falling far short of desegregation, brought ECTC students into brief but closer relations with their African American counterparts. Even during the thick of 1930s segregation, Wright Auditorium became the venue for a concert of spirituals performed by North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College Men’s Glee Club and affiliated A Cappella Choir. Held on February 17, 1939, the concert was one of many the A & T singers performed in mid-February as part of their contribution to “Race Relations Sunday,” an occasion observed variously by Christian organizations seeking to promote better racial relations. The A & T group, representing North Carolina’s oldest and most respected state supported HBCU (today, N. C. A. & T. University in Greensboro) with musical talent and a repertoire of distinctively African American expressions of spirituality, was among the state’s most well-received ambassadors of improved racial relations during the last decade and a half of Jim Crow times. Their concert at ECTC marked the first time an African American event of any kind had taken the main stage in the campus’ student center, Wright Auditorium. Although only briefly, lines had been crossed long before the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling declaring segregation in public facilities unconstitutional.

The concert received minor frontpage Teco Echo coverage. The student newspaper reported that the A & T group, led by Warner Lawson (1903–1971), “earned an enviable reputation and represents one of the highest achievements in ensemble work among college groups in America. Their repertoire is representative of the whole range of choral art from the masters of the sixteenth century to the present.”  The newspaper noted that the A & T singers had made over 95 appearances in Tennessee, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia since its organization just a few years before.

Lawson’s appearance at ECTC occurred early in his career. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, he graduated, in 1926, from Fisk University in Nashville where he studied on a Julliard Scholarship. He then completed a second undergraduate degree in music, at Yale in 1929, before earning a master’s in music and conducting at Harvard in 1936. Lawson first returned to Fisk to head the music department, but then moved to North Carolina A & T in Greensboro to direct its music program, 1936–1942, before joining the faculty at Howard University in Washington, D. C., where he served as dean of the School of Music and then later, dean of the College of Fine Arts. Under Lawson’s leadership, the Howard choir appeared regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D. C., the first African American group to do so, and Lawson occasionally directed the NSO. In 2006, he was inducted posthumously into the Howard University’s Music Educators Hall of Fame.

The Y. W. C. A. was the campus leader at ECTC in addressing racial issues and seeking to improve racial understandings. It was no doubt influential in arranging the A & T performance at East Carolina. The Teco Echo reports that in 1933, the Y. W. C. A., as part of its weekly Friday night program, featured Dr. Leon R. Meadows, future president of ECTC, speaking on “Inter-racial Questions.” The 1939 Tecoan adds that the Y. W. C. A. had, just that year, “become a member of the Interracial Group of Y. W. and Y. M. C. A.’s of the state.” ECTC student Marguerite Averett (1918–1991, m., Daniel), chaired the Y. W. C. A.’s Committee on Race Relations her senior year and participated in an Interracial Conference her junior year.

Two weeks after the A & T concert, ten ECTC student representatives of the Y. W. C. A. and Y. M. C. A. attended an interracial Y. M. – Y. W. C. A. conference held in Durham at the North Carolina College for Negroes (today, N. C. Central University), including Y delegations from black and white campuses statewide. Clearly a break with Jim Crow racial segregation, the meeting was dubbed “one of the most significant conferences in the history of the Y. M. – Y. W. C. A. of North Carolina.” ECTC students attending were Marie Dawson (1918–2014, m., Brace) of Alliance, president; Genevieve Eakes (1918–1989, m., Stuart) of Clinton; Irene Mitcham (1920–1974, m., Cale) of Goldsboro; Doris Blalock (1921–2016, m., Maroney) of Micro; Annie Allen Wilkerson (1920–1979, m., Whelden) of Roxboro; Elizabeth “Betty” McArthur (1918-2011, m., Latchum) of Fayetteville; Alice Harrison (1919–1998, m., Dixon) of Henderson; Lucy Ann Barrow (1920-2001, m., Mooring) of Snow Hill; and Sarah Ann Maxwell (1919–2015) of Pink Hill. Emmett Sawyer (1918–1961) of Belcross represented the YMCA. Professor of education, Dr. Hubert C. Haynes (1898–1973), accompanied the students, along with two additional students, Harvey Deal (1919–1970), and Vernon Keutemeyer (1918–1983). The conference concluded with a presentation by Dr. Benjamin May, dean of the Howard Theological Seminary, held in Duke Auditorium on the NCCN campus.

The Y. W. C. A.’s resume of interracial events was substantial. Two years earlier, it hosted a “deputation” from Shaw University, the state’s oldest private HBCU, bringing to campus, for spiritual reasons, students who otherwise would not have been admitted to the school. And then a year after the A & T concert, in 1940, the Y. W. C. A. hosted more local talent, a group of “Negro students from five colored schools in Pitt County” — Ayden, Grimesland, Winterville, Farmville, and Bethel — for a musical performance at the Y. W. C. A.’s vesper hour. The program, arranged with the assistance of L. N. Darnelle, supervisor of African American Education in Pitt County, included songs such as “Lindy Lou,” “Welcoming Spring,” “Is There Anyone Here?” and “Deep River.” Two years later, on December 6, 1942, the Y. W. C. A. co-hosted, with the Y. M. C. A., a “Negro Marine Choir,” that of the 51st Composite Defense Battalion of New River Marine Barracks, Jacksonville (today, Camp Lejeune), at the campus vespers service, and a visit by an “African missionary.” The same year, the Y. W. C. A. held a drive for the World Student Services Fund (WSSF), donating the proceeds to “help students of all races all over the world, including Americans.”

While the A & T concert of 1939 and the Y. W. C. A.’s ongoing interracial initiatives brought historic breaches in Jim Crow culture, they hardly broke its dominance at ECTC. As of 1943, the Y. W. C. A. could brag that it was the largest and oldest student organization on campus, one affirming the universal brotherhood of mankind, but attendance at vespers services was not so impressive. An editorial, November 15, 1940, a year and a half after the A & T concert, expressed dismay that the vast majority of students did not attend vespers services.

Also, while interracial Y initiatives might have been permitted, desegregation remained unrealizable even at the most liberal campus in North Carolina. When confronted with questions regarding race relations by Pauline Murray (1910–1985), an African American student interested in applying to the University of North Carolina, then president of UNC Frank Porter Graham (1886–1972), replied that he was, according to the constitution of the state of North Carolina and the Supreme Court’s ruling on the matter, unable to admit or bar African American students. Trained as an attorney, Graham affirmed, idealistically, his support for improvements in African American education at every level in the state but insisted that practically he had to work within the parameters of the segregated system sanctioned by law, i.e., the state constitution and the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling allowing “separate but equal” facilities. Later, when East Carolina was approached by African American and non-white students interested in applying for admission, the response was similar: appeal was made to the school’s charter legally restricting educational opportunities to “young white men and women.”

Nevertheless, the A & T concert and the Y. W. C. A.’s ongoing interracial initiatives pointed the way to a new future that would unfold following the 1954 Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling declaring prior laws, and the excuses generated by them, providing for discriminatory segregation, themselves unconstitutional violations of the law of the land.

Sources

• “A. And T. Choir to Appear in Concert Here Sunday Night.” High Point Enterprise. February 5, 1942. P. 10.
• “Democracy Foundation for Y Organizations.” Teco Echo. October 8, 1943. P. 2. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37926
• “Do You Attend the Sunday Vespers Services?” Teco Echo. November 15, 1940. P. 2. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37881
• “Eliminating Racism: The YWCA USA History.” YWCA darian/norwalk. https://ywcadn.org/advocacy/eliminating-racism-the-ywca
• Fehr. Rosalind C. "Choral Director Warner Lawson Elected to Hall of Fame." Music Educators Journal. Vol. 92, Issue 5. May 2006.
• “Impressive Program Presented by Groups: Interracial and Intercollegiate Bodies Sponsor Music.” Greensboro News and Record. February 14, 1939. P. 5.
• “Indian Leader Makes Address to Vesper Group: Lecturer Tells of Christian Life in India.” Teco Echo. May 19, 1939. Pp. 1, 2. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/38086
• “Interracial charter YWCA of the U.S.A. records.” YWCA of the U.S.A. microfilm records. Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository. Smith College Special Collections. Northampton, MA. https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/171597
• “Inter-Racial Panel Discussion to Be Held By ASU-YWCA: Outstanding Men of Both Races to Speak on Negro Education.” Daily Tar Heel. February 12, 1939. P. 1.
• “Marguerite Averett.” Tecoan. 1939. P. 30. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15344
• “Marguerite Currin.” Tecoan. 1940. P. 41. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15345 
• “Meeting of Christian Associations Terminates in Racial Alliance.” Teco Echo. March 10, 1939. P. 4. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/38082
• “Negro Applicant Sends New Letter: Miss Murray Asks for Non-Prejudice.” Daily Tar Heel. February 17, 1939. Pp. 1, 2.
• “Negro Art Exhibited: YWCA Committee Sponsor Showing.” Charlotte News. May 23, 1939. P. 18.
• “Negro Spirituals Sung at Vespers by Marine Choir.” Teco Echo. December 11, 1942. Pp. 1, 4. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37912
• “Negro Students Present Program.” Teco Echo. May 3, 1940. P. 1. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/38103
• “Open Forum Tonight Sponsored by YWCA: Interracial Problems to Be Discussed at Student Affair.” Daily Tar Heel. March 29, 1936. P. 1.
• Patten Says NC YM—YWCA Cabinet to be Dissolved: Body May Become Part of Student Christian Group.” Daily Tar Heel. February 26, 1939. P. 1.
• “Pauli Murray (1910-1985).” The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History. https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/slavery/pauli-murray–1910-1985-
• “Records of the Young Women's Christian Association.” University Archives # UA45-01. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/UA45-01.
• Rosenberg, Morris W. “Negro Applicant Seeks Student Opinion: Pauli Murray Sends Questions on Race Relations to Graham, Negress Suggests Discussion Before Decision is Made.” Daily Tar Heel. February 5, 1939. Pp. 1, 2.
• Rosenberg, Morris W. “President Graham Responds to Recent Letter of Negro Woman Seeking University Admission: UNC Head Pledges Help in Negro School Improvement.” Daily Tar Heel. February 7, 1939. Pp. 1, 4.
• “State YW-YMCA Groups Organize Student Cabinet: Delegates Dissolve Former Committee at Durham Meeting.” Daily Tar Heel. March 1, 1939. Pp. 1, 2.
• “Warner Lawson (1903–1971) Musician, University Department Administrator.” Hartford Changemakers. Hartford Public Library. https://hplct.libguides.com/changemakers/lawson
• “Warner Lawson Dies; Dean of Music College.” Hartford Courant. June 8, 1971. P. 6A.
• “Woman Applicant to University of N. C. Tells Her Side of Story: Pauline Murray Releases to Times Letter Written President Franklin Graham.” Carolina Times. January 21, 1939. Pp. 1, 8.
• “Young Men’s Christian Association.” Tecoan. 1940. P. 126. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15345
• “Young Women’s Christian Association.” Tecoan. 1939. P. 122. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15344
• “Young Women’s Christian Association.” Tecoan. 1937. P. 149. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15342
• “Young Women’s Christian Association.” Tecoan. 1943. P. 111. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15348
• “Y. W. C. A. Offers Study Courses.” Teco Echo. January 25, 1933. P. 1. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/38000

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